Nederland 24 is the digital portal for the NPO, the public broadcaster in the Netherlands. As of January 1, 2009 the service consists of 12 channels, originally it consisted of 17 channels.
The first step towards Nederland 24 was made by the VPRO in May 2003 with the introduction of 3VOOR12TV. The success of this theme channel led to the launch of the 3VOOR12 Central, 3VOOR12 On Stage, Journaal 24, and Holland Doc channels in December 2004 and /Geschiedenis in February 2005. The name Nederland 4 first emerged with the start of the internet portal Nederland4.nl on 6 April 2005 as an umbrella for all the theme channels.
As of November 2006 the NPO started with the extension of the number of channels to 17, since then the offer shrunk to 12 by January 2009. The Nederland-e, DNTV, 3VOOR12 Central, and 3VOOR12 On Stage channels where cancelled and /Geloven and Omega TV combined into Spirit 24. On 15 April 2009 the name Nederland 4 changed to Nederland 24, the names of the theme channels also changed to include the "24" prefix.
On January 2009 it was announced that the politic channel Politiek 24 would changed into a sport/politic channel. Opvoeden doe je zo! will change to Z@ppelin 24, a child and parent channel.
Holland Doc is a documentarychannel of the Netherlands. It is a digital theme channel, available 24 hours, 7 days a week. Typically programs are in the Dutch language. Yet, depending on the subject of the documentary the language will be non-Dutch with Dutch subtitles (English is perhaps the second most common language).